Actress Close To Speak At W&m Graduation

April 08, 1989

WILLIAMSBURG — Actress Glenn Close, a 1974 graduate of The College of William and Mary, will be the speaker and receive an honorary degree at the college's May 14 graduation.

Other honorary degree recipients will include Robert McCormick Adams, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Mary Maples Dunn, president of Smith College and a 1954 W&M graduate; and physicist Sir Denys H. Wilkinson, vice chancellor of Sussex University in England.

Close, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate, was active in writing, directing and acting in W&M theater productions. During her senior year, she was nominated for the national regional auditions of the Theatre Communications, which led to her professional theatrical debut in New York.

She received a Tony Award for her performance in "The Real Thing," an Obie Award for her role in "The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs," an Emmy nomination for her role in "Something About Amelia" and Academy Award nominations for her work in "The World According to Garp," "The Big Chill," "The Natural," "Fatal Attraction" and "Dangerous Liaisons." She recently finished work on a film titled "Immediate Family," with James Woods.

Graduation will begin at 1 p.m. in William and Mary Hall.

Martin E. Marty, theologian and author, will speak at the baccalaureate service at 9:30 a.m. May 13 in W&M Hall.

Marty is president of Park Ridge Center, an institute for the study of health, faith and ethics, and is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago. He is the author of more than 40 books and serves as project director for a five-year fundamentalism project for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.